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Too many days. Too many days, that awful, despicable, rude, ruthless bully called, “cancer” has knocked on the door of those I love. That day in high school when it took the life of my best friend, Cyndi’s, mother. That day just out of college when my roommate, Sandra’s, mother was diagnosed. Doctors gave her less than a year. She got the rare last laugh and lived 10 more. That day in ’97 when it was my other roommate, Heidi’s

It’s the looming question waiting for every woman at the bottom of a plastic bottle. The answer you give that informs the world information about you without your saying a word. What do you believe? What is beauty? And so, Dear Woman, I know you’ve asked yourself. Will you or won’t you? Do you or don’t you? When that time comes, do you— Reach for the bottle? Bottle, as in plastic. Bottle as in— Do you choose to color your

“We have a crisis going on here.” Those are not exactly the words you want to hear from your daughter when you’re calling home from the other side of the country. “I’ve only been gone a few hours. What could possibly have gone wrong?” I asked with a jillion scenarios racing through my mind. “Daddy can’t find his keys,” my daughter explained. “Oh,” was all I could say, at first simultaneously giving thanks that that was all it was,

Well, hello there, brides and wives! Looks like my column from a couple of weeks ago where I shared my choice not to change my name when I married has touched a nerve. The responses have been pouring in. There’s no way I could print all of them, so here are a few. Tammie Morris represents the majority of women I heard from who chose to take her husband’s last name and make her maiden name her middle name. She

My dad and I are getting along much better these days. Which is interesting, especially considering he has been gone for more than six years now. Gone in the sense of he passed away. Gone in the sense of it was his time. Gone in the sense that what’s left of him, here in my heart, finally feels good. The enormity of the positive and negative influence my father had on me was twisted together like a mighty tornado zooming

This day is coming, Brides. I warn you—it’s coming. Plan a huge Southern wedding including 68 cousins four times removed, go rustic chic spending thousands to say your vows in a splintery barn or elope to be married by an Elvis impersonator. No matter what you do. This day is coming. There’s simply no avoiding it. Anyone woman who has been married must answer the question. Will you or won’t you? My friend, Treva, asked me just the other day. “Did

It’s pathetic, really,what a bad friend I am. You know that friend you want to bemoan to, share your fears, loneliness and sadness about someone who hasn’t shown up in your life? Yeah, I’m really bad at being her. My challenge is, I guess, to borrow from that old movie “The Sixth Sense,” is I see people. Not dead people, mind you, like little Haley Osment saw in the movie. In my case, I can’t

As lucky charms go, mine is not shy. “Daryn, you should write a column about me,” she strongly suggested this week. Since she is the one who, I believe, changed my life for the best ever, hers is a request I’m sure to fulfill. So here goes. She showed up at one of those low times. One of those, feel sorry for myself, this is never going to get better, I’m on verge of getting bitter, Pity Party for One,

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio. Here’s this week’s column: I want to ask her to be my new best friend. I haven’t exactly actually met her yet. There’s that. My teenaged daughter is already freaking out at the idea. There’s that, as well. “It’s stalker, creepy,” she informs me. “What? Dreaming of making someone I’ve not actually met my new BFF?” This conversation is

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio. Here’s this week’s column: I hate not being able to help. The pull to help seems to come as naturally to me as my 14-year-old dog is drawn to her liver-flavored treats. And yet, there are times when you have to know you can’t. You just can’t. At least Dear Reader out there understands my frustration. For this one man, a husband, this